Simply put, what is Babelgum, and how was it born?

The Babelgum network features content spanning film, news, sports, documentaries, music videos and concerts, lifestyle and trends, animation and scripted programs. Babelgum is the brainchild of Silvio Scaglia, founder and former CEO of Italian telecommunications company Fastweb, the first company to commercially implement IPTV on a ‘closed network’ in Europe. Silvio saw the potential to extend the flexibility, capacity and interactivity of IPTV to the open Internet and formed Babelgum in 2005 to realize that dream.

Are the comparisons with Joost justified – how are the two similar – and how do they differ?

Both Babelgum and Joost use the same basic peer to peer (P2P) streaming technology

to deliver TV quality video and audio over the Internet and both require users to download a small ‘client’ application to view the available library of content. To that extent they are similar.

Where Babelgum differs is that it has no wish to replicate mainstream broadcast television – the company believes that the traditional platforms currently have inherent advantages in the delivery of mainstream content. Babelgum is creating a new kind of television that brings together professional niche content from

around the world and delivers it to niche communities of interest, no matter where the individual members of those niches are located. It is for that reason that we expect 80% of content to be sourced from the independent sector with the remainder coming from mainstream providers.

So how is content on Babelgum secured or protected?

• Firstly all Babelgum content comes from fully accredited producers who own the copyright to the material that they supply.

• Secondly, it is important to distinguish P2P sharing from the P2P streaming used by Babelgum. No content is actually downloaded to users’ computers.

• Thirdly the platform incorporates a flexible License Server that supports a host of Digital Rights Management facilities such as geographical restrictions, time-limited licenses, pay-per-view, etc.

• Finally all videos are temporarily stored in a proprietary scrambled format, optimized for P2P delivery, in order to prevent piracy. Content is also delivered in 128-bits AES encryption; with the decoding key obtained from a different source to the content and is itself encoded with public key encryption, so it is never stored on a disk.

Babelgum was unveiled at MIPTV, can you give Television Asia an update of developments since then?

Since the launch of beta test stage of Babelgum’s development at MIPTV we have been focusing on three primary areas:

• Fine tuning the platform and adding features prior to the commercial launch, which is expected towards the end of the first quarter of 2008.

• Bringing content on board the platform. The library of available content is now growing on a daily basis and we expect to have between 50-100,000 hours available at the time of commercial launch.

• Developing a direct upload facility to enable content owners to direct submit content to the platform and actively manage their assets.

Are content providers paid upfront or is it a revenue share based on the popularity of their content, or a mixture of both?

A limited number of exclusive content deals have been made and will continue to be agreed with selected content owners on an upfront fee basis, however Babelgum’s fundamental business model is based on the

distribution of content on a nonexclusive basis in return for a share of advertising revenue.

What about viewers within Asia?

Our current focus in stage one of Babelgum’s development is on English language programming, which will be available globally. However, the platform is equipped to offer programming in all major language groups and stage two will see us moving to bring content on to the platform in Chinese and Spanish. Other languages will then follow. Asia is clearly a key market high on the list of priorities for us.

Any content from, or specifically for, Asia?

Content in Chinese means locally produced. It’s a requirement if we fully expect to develop the Chinese market. We have already brought some Japanese animation on to the platform and we are in discussion with other Asian providers however our current focus is on English language programming or with English language sub-titling.

Have there been any unexpected failures, or successes so far? Or might Babelgum evolve into something different to how it was envisaged?

The platform is developing as planned and since its early beta stages, has proven itself to be extremely stable. These are very early days in the development of Internet TV services but there are now no technical restrictions to delivering unlimited libraries of content via the open Internet. In the short term that content will be delivered primarily to PCs but the devices and protocols that are now entering the market allow for streaming connect directly to televisions either via IP set top boxes, integrated TVs or by wired or wireless connections from the PC. All approaches will soon be available and they indicate the start of mainstream consumer adoption of web TV.

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